In This Issue…
How Randy Gage Turned ‘Prosperity’ into a Personal Brand PLUS… This Week’s Publisher’s Page w/ Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz… Million Dollar Rolodex®… FREE MDB ‘Money Tree’ Chart… ‘What We Believe’… Yeah, yeah – and much more!
‘Millionaire Messiah’ Randy Gage
Our Premier Issue! www.MillionDollarBrand.com
‘MILLION DOLLAR BRAND’ Magazine
We Built Our Million Dollar Brand… Now It’s Your Turn!
We sat there, shell-shocked and dumbfounded, over the lack of response from the corporate and association meeting planners we were certain would be dying to book us for their next convention. We racked our brains trying to determine what had gone awry. Had the Post Office simply dumped the books in the garbage? That question was answered when a single order for 10 books was faxed to our office, so the post-officesabotage theory was out It had to be something else.
Without a doubt, seeking advice from top marketing experts – specifically in the speaking, training, coaching, writing and info-marketing world – has made all the difference. In fact, we’ve invested over $100,000 with many of these ‘gurus’ to gain their insights –we only wish we’d done it sooner. It is with this in mind that we started MillionDollarBrand.com… the resource we wish we’d had when we first started… and to publish this magazine. Because doing it alone is not only the hard way, it’s the dumb way. That said, virtually every expert we’ve had the good fortune to meet over the last decade , the ones who helped us build our Million Dollar Brand, have agreed to ‘share their brilliance’ here with you.
Welcome! -R&A
What had we done wrong? 250,000 copies later, and after having been on Amazon’s ‘Sales’ bestseller list for over 2 years, we realize there was no one thing we did wrong… we did almost everything wrong! And one of the things we did wrong was not seeking advice from those who had already successfully done what we wanted to do.
Andrea Waltz & Richard Fenton, Publishers/Editors www.MillionDollarBrand.com
Copyright © 2012 by Courage Crafters, Inc. All rights reserved. To CONTRIBUTE CONTENT please click here. For information on becoming a JV/AFFILIATE PARTNER please click here. For everything else, please see Links on Page 14
Disclaimer Statement: Our definition of a ‘Million Dollar Brand’ is any brand that has generated one million dollars (or more) in gross revenue. Additionally, while this publication is made FREE to subscribers, please be aware that we do maintain affiliate relationships with many of the advertisers and content contributors contained within, from which we may receive monetary compensation. However, we only recommend products that we've either personally checked out ourselves, or that come from people we know and trust. With this said, neither we as publishers, nor Courage Crafters, Inc., are responsible for the success or failure of any investment and/or purchase decision any subscribe elects to engage in with affiliates Or advertisers.
It was in the fall of 1999 that we wrote the first rough draft of Go for No!®, a book which we felt was destined to be not only an instant bestseller, but one of the great personal development brands of all time. So it was with great excitement and anticipation that we dropped the first batch of review copies in the mail – over 500 packages – to every key influencer we could identify. And… nothing. The phone didn’t ring at all.
is published weekly by Courage Crafters, Inc., specifically for professional speakers, trainers, authors, coaches and infopreneurs.
inside WHAT’S
Features 2
This Week’s Publishers Page with Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz
5 Download our FREE MDB ‘Money Tree’ Chart
6-10 Keynote Speaker & Best Selling Author Randy Gage on Why ‘Risky Is The New Safe’
12 Million Dollar Rolodex®
14-15 Links & ‘What We Believe!’
New to Using Issuu? Here are some ‘quick tips’ to enhance your reading experience…
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Premier Issue: October 1, 2012
For More Information, Email Jeanne Baach: jeanne@insightpublishing.com
Who Says Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees? Wouldn’t it be great if money grew on trees? Well, maybe it does. When you think about it, growing a business – any business – is very much like a growing tree: First, there is the ‘seed’ of an idea that gets planted, initially in the mind of the entrepreneur, and then in the marketplace itself. Then comes years (decades, perhaps) of nurturing the business to ensure its growth. And finally – once the business has found its place in the sun – comes the never-ending process of protecting it from fierce competition, ups and downs in the economy, and other outside ‘elements’ that can stunt its growth… or perhaps even kill it altogether.
Long-Term Brand Awareness Strategy
The ‘Problem’ You Solve & ‘Solution’ You Deliver
Joint Ventures
How You Bring It to ‘Market’
What You’ve Got To Sell
(how you improve the client’s condition)
‘Elevator Speech’
Million Dollar Brand ‘Money Tree’
™
www.MillionDollarBrand.com
Integrity, Personality, Knowledge, Self-Confidence, Drive, etc. Who You Are at Your ‘Roots’
Nowhere is this analogy more true than in the world of ‘information marketing’ in which professional speakers, authors, coaches, entrepreneurs and internet marketers operate. But, when done right, the tree that gets planted and allowed to grow to its full potential can become a literal ‘money tree’ of sorts. It was with this visualization in mind that the staff of Million Dollar Brand Magazine set about creating our Million Dollar Brand ‘Money Tree’ Chart™… with each branch representing one major area of development for any growing business brand. We couldn’t include every possible area or activity, but we think we included most of the big ones. -MDB
See Our ClickMillion Here toDollar Brand Money Your Tree™ Chart Download onCOMPLIMENTARY the Next Page… ‘Money Tree’ Chart!
IT’S EARLY MORNING and Randy Gage is relaxing in the airline lounge in San Francisco, having just returned from Phuket, Thailand, where he crossed another item off his “bucket list”— riding an elephant through the rain forest—when he notices a couple with a cute little puppy peeking out of a travel carrier. A lover of animals, Randy cannot resist asking if he can play with the puppy. The couple agrees. But as Gage sits there petting the dog, the couple casually mention something unexpected and quite shocking:
“Our puppy is a clone.” Later on the flight to Miami, Gage watches as the husband takes the dog from first class to the economy cabin to show it off. Gage is intrigued, but still doubtful that that the frisky puppy with the bright eyes is actually a ‘clone’ as the couple have claimed – until the flight arrives at MIA and he sees the phalanx of reporters and camera crews that are waiting to photograph the dog. But as the cameras click away, Gage is no longer focused on the puppy. He’s focused on the future. Because Randy Gage knows that when it comes to things like cloning (along with the veritable
sea of other advances in science, medicine, and nutrition), the genie isn’t going back in the bottle; the world as we know it is about to change in ways we have only begun to imagine. But to understand Randy Gage’s fascination with the future, you have to understand his past. A Rocky Start Leads to Speaking Stardom
Expelled from Wisconsin’s Madison West Senior High School, Gage admits to being less than a model student. “I was a teenage alcoholic. I was a teenage drug addict. I was actually in jail for armed robbery when I was 15 years old. I made a lot of really bad choices in my life and that certainly led me down a path or a journey that wasn’t very positive, wasn’t very fruitful, wasn’t very enjoyable.” While a lot of things happened to him along the way, Gage says there were some important, defining moments that made a big difference in the course his life would eventually take. “There was a teacher who came in to visit me in my jail cell, and told me I didn’t belong there – that I was capable of great things – and that was a transformational experience in my life, because (continued on next page)
How Randy Gage Turned ‘Prosperity’ into a Personal Brand I believed it.” And why did he believe it? “Because I desperately wanted to believe it,” says Gage. It was that belief, along with a passion for selfdevelopment (something he admits he didn’t even know existed) and a healthy dose of positive action, that has resulted in Randy Gage becoming a selfmade multimillionaire and one of the world’s most sought-after keynote speakers on creating a ‘prosperity mindset’ and accepting abundance. “Everything in life is mental, everything is about you. It has nothing to do with the outside, the external. I believe we all are responsible and able to manifest our own destiny.” That’s why, today, when Randy Gage stands on a stage and delivers his no-holds-barred message to thousands of eager followers, he stands as living proof that changing your mind can change your life, starting with uncovering your limiting beliefs. “Mind viruses, which are just like viruses you get on your hard drive, infect your subconscious mind,” says Gage, “and these are limiting beliefs that are programmed by governments, by the pop culture stuff, movies, books, TV, radio, all that stuff, and limiting beliefs such as money is bad, rich people are evil, it’s spiritual to be poor, you’ve got to sell your soul to be rich, you’ve got to exploit people to get ahead, you’ve got to have money to make money, you’ve got to get in at the top to make money, etc. These are all just mind viruses.” And this is the simple genius behind Randy Gage’s brand: identify the problem (the negative impact of ‘mind viruses’ on people’s lives) and the solution (helping people to identify and remove them) and then present that solution with your specific point of view. Gage isn’t afraid to figuratively slap his followers upside the head or give them a swift kick. Instead of telling them what they want to hear – he presents what he believes they need to hear. And they love him for it. This bold, brash style has
(continued)
allowed Gage to own his niche and turn prosperity into a personal brand.
When asked for an example, Gage quickly offered: “I was in Costa Rica at the Four Seasons Resort, in a $3,000 per night villa on the mountain with a spectacular view of the Papagayo Peninsula. When we woke up in the morning there was a monkey right on our huge patio balcony, a four foot iguana walking around and eagles flying overhead. And a person in our group started talking about the $40 fruit plate we were having for breakfast, about how the same fruit is $5 at home, and I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re not paying for the fruit, you’re paying for the monkeys, and the iguanas, and the eagles, and the water, and the view, and the palm trees!’” As Gage relates the story, you can hear the excitement in his voice because he knows this isn’t just a story about the cost of fruit; it’s a lesson in prosperity thinking and the negative power mind-viruses have over people. And, when it comes to one-on-one coaching, it’s making observations about things like this, the selfsabotage and limited thinking that most of us barely notice, that makes Randy worth every penny he charges for his time. A Strong Point of View Call him a philosopher, a Jedi Knight, or (as some have dubbed him) the ‘millionaire messiah’, Randy Gage doesn’t care; all that matters is that you remember him… and his message. Because, besides his unwavering belief that you were born to be rich, Gage believes that people are meant to be challenged, inspired, and that boring is criminal. This is especially true for professional speakers, trainers and authors seeking to build a memorable brand. To quote Gage: “You’ve got to have a f***ing point of view. No one wants to hear a speaker giving book reports and summaries of the current books on the Business Week list—they can read those books themselves, and they probably have. (continued on next page)
For Even More Great Content & Brand-Building Resources, Visit Us at: MillionDollarBrand.com
How Randy Gage Turned ‘Prosperity’ into a Personal Brand They bring you in because they want to know what YOU think. So have a point of view. And don’t make it politically correct, safe and conventional. Or no one is going to remember you two minutes later.” Case in point, the speech Gage gave to a packed room of 2,000 at the National Speakers Association convention in San Diego in 2007. During his hour on stage, Gage pointed out that there were 532 speakers in the association who claimed to be the world’s #1 sales trainers; told people it was not only their right to be rich, but also a sin to be poor and mocked fellow speakers for sitting in coach rather than first class; and – though deeply spiritual himself – he conducted a full-frontal attack on ‘organized religion’ for the negative impact the church often has on people’s prosperity thinking. The most important lesson from Gage’s presentation that day in 2007, however, is that people are still talking about it five years later! Oh, and the fact that per Gage’s estimation, the speech brought him no less than $200,000 in spin-off business from various speaker’s bureaus in attendance, a book deal, a television show, and a lot of product sales. But, in addition to challenging audience members from the stage, Gage is also a prolific writer who
(continued)
brings the same approach to the words he places on the printed page. Says bestselling author, Steve Siebold: “Love or hate him, Randy Gage is one of the few writers left in America with the guts to take a stand and challenge his readers to really think.” ‘Risky Is the New Safe’…
When Randy Gage was growing up, his mother told him what most parents tell their children: To go to school, earn a degree, and get a job with a big company – that way he’d be set for life. After all, it was ‘the safe thing to do’, with millions of other parents around the world giving their children the same advice. Today, says Gage, following that advice might be the riskiest thing a person can do. “Fortunately, because I was expelled from high school,” says Gage with a chuckle, “I never got a chance to follow my mother’s advice.” It was in not following that safe path that has made Randy Gage a rich man. As Gage explains in his new book, Risky Is the New Safe (due out in mid-October, 2012): “Everything you know as safe is about to become very risky. And taking risks is the new safe. Everybody is playing safe, because they think that’s the smart thing to do. But in the new economy, playing safe is the riskiest thing you can do.” (continued on next page)
Note: For proof of the power of a strong POV, one needs only reference Randy Gage’s social media numbers; 98,000 Facebook fans, 140,000 Twitter followers, and an Empire Avenue stock price of $407/share (at the time of this writing)… not to mention the cars!
Randy Gage’s advice for building a million dollar brand?
“Have a f***ing point of view!”
To get Randy Gage’s new book, Risky Is The New Safe (scheduled for an Oct. 30, 2012, release), visit: www.RandyGage.com/RiskyIsTheNewSafe
Cover Story with Randy Gage
(continued)
Though making the point that he is not a professional ‘futurist’, Gage makes a number of predictions in Risky Is the New Safe. Among them:
In the NEXT ISSUE of Million Dollar Brand Magazine…
Millions of more jobs eliminated by technology. Complete industries will disappear. The Euro will probably collapse within the next two to three years. Many more companies will go bankrupt… and so will some countries. But none of Gage’s predictions are intended to depress his readers. To the contrary, Randy believes we are living in the greatest time in human history, with the massive number of changes serving as amazing opportunities, at least for people who are aware of the coming tidal waves, and are willing to zag when everyone else is zigging. Within seconds of arriving at Randy’s www.RandyGage.com website, you’ll discover that Gage likes hot cars, warm beaches, cold Dr. Pepper, and thinks loud ideas are sexy. But if you look past the casual stuff, you’ll discover that – much like peeling back the layers of an onion – that he has something else to offer: an uncommon willingness to ‘tell it like it is’ in a world where others feel compelled to hide. Because, ultimately…
Randy Gage has evolved into what most of us long to be; a person with the courage and means to live life the way one wants, with little concern for what other people think. And for those of us who are seeking to build our own Million Dollar Brands, Gage serves one final purpose: As a shining example of what can be achieved when we identify a problem that begs to be solved, and deliver solutions with passion and (dare we say it one last time)… ‘a f***ing point of view.’ -MDB In addition to embarking on some exciting new adventure in his quest to help people let go of fear and limiting beliefs, Randy Gage is the author of 8 books on success, translated into more than 25 languages, and having sold millions of copies. His latest book, Risky Is the New Safe, hits bookstores everywhere in mid-October, 2012. To subscribe to Randy’s ezine or watch his free Prosperity TV videos, visit his website: www.RandyGage.com
The 10
Greatest Political Speeches of the Last 100 Years
Does America’s ‘Teleprompter President’ Rank Among the Best?
Las Vegas Oct 25-28, 2012
Author 101University A four-day event specifically designed for authors and entrepreneurs who want to have publishing and marketing success, Author101 University – now in its 10th year – is an event that draws attendees from all over the world. “I have worked with virtually every best selling author you've heard of,” says event creator Rick Frishman, “and have worked with hundreds of literary agents and publishers. And I am bringing many of them to Author101U to meet you!” And Frishman is proud to point out that many attendees have received book contracts!
Author 101 Will Teach You How to: • Get your book published •Sell your book to a publisher •Make your book a bestseller
•Promote yourself using low-cost means online to catapult your sales & exposure •Transform your business into a mega success
And lots more!
This program is not just for established or aspiring authors; it is also for entrepreneurs, small biz owners, speakers, and just about anyone else looking to meet and learn directly from some of the bestselling authors and experts in marketing.
In addition to the speaker listed below, there will also be many AGENTS, EDITORS, AND PUBLISHERS on special panels looking to meet you and willing to share their coveted industry secrets. There will also be 2 meet & greet sessions with editors and publishers (on Saturday and Sunday morning) where you'll have the opportunity to pitch your project!
You'll Learn From: Tom Antion Internet Marketing Expert Barbara De Angelis #1 Bestselling Author/Award Winning Speaker Brendon Burchard Leadership Speaker and Best Selling Author Scott Hoffman Mega Literary Agent David Hancock Morgan James Publishing Alex Carroll Radio Interview Expert Peter Hoppenfeld Attorney to best and brightest Gary Goldstein Celebrated Hollywood film producer Peggy McColl Best Selling author & Launch expert Wendy Lipton-Dibner Best Selling Author and Speaking guru
For more details on the event and to register, visit: www.author101university.com
Looking for More Great Resources? The business profiled above is just one of the many product/service vendors we know of and highly recommend to others. To see a complete listing of hundreds of organizations ready and willing to help you grow your brand, check out the ‘Resource Section’ at:
www.MillionDollarBrand.com
The
2013
Independent Publisher Book Awards World's Largest Book Awards are Now Open! Contest… for ‘Indies’ Only! Calling all independent authors and publishers! The Independent Publisher Book Awards, also know as the IPPY’s, is conducted to honor the year's best independently published titles, are proud to announce they are now accepting entries for books with 2012 or 2013 copyrights or released between Aug 1, 2011 and March 15, 2013. The contest, now in its 17th year, is presented by Jenkins Group, headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan. Complete information is available at their website: www.IndependentPublisher.com
The “IPPY” Awards were conceived as a broadbased, unaffiliated awards program open to all members of the independent publishing industry, and are open to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books written in English and intended for the North American market, with “independent” is identified as:
Enter by October 13th for early-bird entry fee of $75 1) Independently owned and operated…
75 topic categories in National awards Regional awards for the US, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand E-Book Awards with fiction, nonfiction, children’s and regional categories Ten Outstanding Books of the Year awards chosen from all entries at no extra charge Great Publicity & Awards party at BEA!
2) Operated by a foundation or university, or… 3) Long-time independents that became incorporated but operate autonomously and publish fewer than 50 titles a year.
Winners receive medals, certificates, and earn credibility, publicity — and, of course, increased book sales!
Download the 2013 IPPY Awards guidelines and entry form at:
www.IndependentPublisher.com
He said all men were created equal. He never said anything about brands.
Links to take you where you want to go‌‌
October 1, 2012
We Believe... #1… A government’s focus should be on providing people with free-dom, not free-stuff
#2… Our mission as publishers of this magazine is to bring you great content that will help you ‘grow your business’ and ‘own your niche’… but (as we’ll discuss in next week’s ‘Publisher’s Page’ essay) we also believe that done is better than perfect. So, should you stumble on a tpyo or too – and then feel compelled to point them out to someone – please tell the counterperson about it when you drop off your dry cleaning, because we ’ve moved on to other exciting projects and really don’t give a flying banana
#3… That FAILURE is essential to growth. So, if you’re not as successful as you want to be, you’re probably not failing enough!
And we REALLY believe that every American should support the Wounded Warrior Project® For more information or to donate, visit: www.WoundedWarriorProject.org
Tell Us What You Want… What You Really, Really Want!* As a new publication, Million Dollar Brand Magazine is working hard to ensure we deliver the content you really, really want… the way you really, really want it! Longer? Shorter? Specific articles you’d like to read? Particular people you’d like to learn about? Seriously, your feedback is really, really important to us. Thanks!
Email Your Feedback to:
ShoutOuts@MillionDollarBrand.com
Tell us what YOU think! Send your 20-word (or less) ‘Shout Out’ to:
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No, Victoria Beckham has not endorsed Million Dollar Brand Magazine – heck, she probably doesn’t know it exists! In any case, her ‘licensed’ photo appears only as part of this parody.